Why I blog. What you read.

Apparently I sometimes come across as having an idyllic lifestyle.  Perhaps you think that I do a few trivial jobs in the morning and then while away the afternoon casually penning a blog post before cooking pinto beans and getting people to buy me drinks in the evening.

This characterisation will come as news to my partner, Conrad, who struggles with the idea that I don't take my job seriously enough, or that I spend too little time doing it.

Reality at the moment is closer to a 12+ hour work day, plus over 90 minutes of commuting time on foot (in days when I'm not traveling),  an hour preparing food, an hour exercising, and about 6 hours sleeping.  In any window of free time during the day I will try to blog.

So given these time pressures, why do I think it's important to hammer out a blog post every day?  Because I love numbered lists, here are three reasons:

1. For me.  I really enjoy writing this blog.  Yes, I know it's often frivolous, and sometimes it risks reading like my vanity project rather than a genuine fundraising effort, but I'm still proud of it. It's not going to win any Pulitzer Prizes but it serves as a good record of what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, and how I'm feeling.  Plus it's therapeutic and I can push these out pretty quickly.

2. For you.  I like being able to connect with you through the blog, and a surprisingly high number of you seem to enjoy reading it! (Including my mummy and daddy!)

3. To raise more money!  I am doing this mainly to raise money.  The more I connect with people, the more I show that I am investing a significant amount of my own time in this project, the more people know I'm serious about this, the more people tell their friends about this, the more money I can raise.  To put it even more bluntly, I'm happy to give up a few hours of sleep in order to extract more of your $s for a good cause!


Who's reading?

On a good day, I get around 500 unique visitors.  This may not be a lot but it seems a lot to me.  On a bad day (usually if I write something statistical or political, without pictures) it can be as low as 200.

You are from all over the world, but most of you are in America or England - unsurprisingly. I'm pleased that I have a significant Indian fan club, and excited to have one highly dedicated reader from Tonga.  (I would love it if you got in touch with me!)


What do you enjoy reading?

In terms of pictures, you are more likely to click on these:

than these:

Weird.  You seemed to like the 20 year old underwear model best of all.  I understand.

You aren't particularly excited about reading things like this: "The empirical record provides little evidence that minimum wage laws  increase unemployment, even if logic necessitates that they do at extremes.", preferring things like this: "I have a confession: I am not a 24 year old underwear model. I'm not even the 26 year old version that I upgraded myself to upon receiving too many unsolicited recommendations for Botox doctors".

Even if you don't share my obsession with categorizing things into numbered lists, you still seem to enjoy reading them: A test of ten strategies for getting free alcohol; the five types of people who send me messages; five strategies for minimum wage birthday success; three reasons why I blog...

In general you prefer silly over serious; funny over factual.  But I'm going to continue mixing all four.  I think that's important.

Most of all, I'm honored that you continue to read, so thank you!  And, hey, who needs sleep anyway?